Friday, March 31, 2017

The Tea Story

The Tea Story

So you shouldn’t think of people as stereotypes - like all Englishmen enjoy a spot of tea right?

Setting: Gen Con 2016

My son and I are enjoying one of our annual trips to North America’s largest annual board gaming conventions. Gen Con. Now you have to understand the crowds - somewhere north of 50,000 people, and the size of the convention center - about 1/4 mile end to end. We avoided the long lines of the food trucks, which are great, and had lunch at the Sushi place about a block. We had been seeing tweets all morning from our friend Paul Grogan about some challenges he was having in his demo area and he sounded really frustrated. While at lunch I saw a tweet from our mutual friend Mike Risley, currently in Salt Lake City, asking for a tea delivery service in Indianapolis. I responded back knowing exactly what he had in mind - “I’m on it”. Between the restaurant and the convention center is my favorite coffee shop - smartly open 24 hours during the Con, I figured they’d have some tea. They did and I picked up some other snacks. Not knowing how Paul liked his tea we made it black but put some creamer in a second cup with a lid and sweeteners in a third and put it all in one of those carriers. We headed off to the convention center on one of the most crowded days with a handful of hot tea and our own drinks, wouldn’t pass up a chance to get my own iced coffee. We made it the ¼ mile or so and found Paul and I told him about Mike’s message and he said, quite flatly, “I don’t drink tea”. He politely took the snacks and I thought - “well, shit - who besides my wife who is 150 miles away do I know likes tea around here???.....Ignacy!” Stephen is always joking about him drinking tea when the go out to bars. Crap…. Portal’s booth is on the other side deep in the exhibition hall - oh well, I like Ignacy and the tea is still hot. We pushed our way thru the crowds, skirting along the perimeter like rats having learned this “secret” less used path before. I arrived at the booth and Ignacy wasn’t there - but I did see Merry and Chevy. I’d met Merry once but I know Chevy pretty well. They told me he was off shooting a video in the BGG booth and would be back soon. I asked Chevy to explain that I wasn’t a crazy person, which he couldn’t necessarily confirm, and explain to Merry and Ignacy when I returned why I brought them some tea and it was safe. We left the tea and went off to the BGG booth and actually saw Ignacy finishing things up, told him what happend and he seemed to appreciate the thought. Not sure if he ever drank the tea or not.

For the record I don’t tea or pop or alcohol any more so don’t show up with drink for me but other than coffee.